In The Spotlight -- Shawn Kemp Can't Escape Its Heat

Shawn Kemp will look you straight in the eye and make his declaration, a furrow on his brow and sense of urgency in his voice. He will assure you of conjuring the necessary fervor to fuel another run at an NBA championship. But in his next breath he will admit the thrill is gone.

The flame that has burned so brightly between Kemp and a city, between him and a franchise, for the better part of eight years has started to flicker. The past, tumultuous year has snuffed out much of the passion. And the consequences, beyond the postseason which Kemp and his Sonics begin tomorrow, could be shattering.

When this latest quest is finished, Kemp says he will pack his things and transport them home to Elkhart, Ind. There, he will assemble his family and closest friends, ask for their undivided attention and speak. The speech will not end until all the various scenarios are outlined.

"Some big decisions are going to be made this summer," Kemp said earlier this week, during a rare, extensive one-on-one interview. "I think there are a lot of cards to be shuffled. I'm going to look at my situation, and the different stuff that happened and didn't happen."

Kemp won't specify what decisions will be made because he still hasn't clearly defined the issues. He says this episodic season has caused him to "start losing my desire to play." Will he retire? He doubts it. Will he ask out of Seattle? That's a valid question.

It is clear that Kemp feels jilted. Because of that, this spring, the season for optimism and beginnings, feels like an ending. Maybe not the end of a career, but at least the end of a romance. Misunderstanding has bred innuendo, which in turn has bred pain and disconnection.

This season has been unlike any other in Kemp's otherwise meteoric NBA career. For the first time, his scoring and rebounding averages dropped. For the first time since he was a surprising first-round selection by the Sonics in 1989, he has heard boos in Seattle. For the first time, there are doubts.

Kemp, 27, often has reacted to stress in erratic fashion. In a fevered search for one, simple reason for the All-Star forward's behavior, some have publicly accused Kemp of having a drinking problem, a characterization he and others who would know have denied. The cause of a season marred by a holdout, rampant rumors, chronic truancy and a dip in performance is infinitely more fractured and complex.

But for those who insist on an uncomplicated truth, there is one: Shawn Kemp breathes the same oxygen as the rest of us.

Kemp relates, "A buddy of mine from college called recently and said, `You know what? You are a human being. For the first time, I look at the TV and say damn, Shawn's a real person. For all these years, I've been looking at you like you were a superhero or something. I look at you now and you're as real as I am.' "

"I can't say that I wanted to leave. I feel a great responsibility to the fans here. I grew up here since I was 19. I was booed on draft day, but it's been mostly cheers since then." - Shawn Kemp, Oct. 9, 1994, on his aborted trade to Chicago.

If the coming offseason yields a dramatic development - a breakup of some sort or, at the very least, an uneasy detente - the search for what went wrong will take Shawn Kemp and his Sonics back to the summer of 1994, a three-month period during which the seeds of mistrust first were sown.

That summer slammed into the Sonics like a runaway wrecking ball. They suffered their historic first-round playoff loss to Denver, and Bob Whitsitt was whisked from his job as team president in an unceremonious contretemps. Sometime before or between those events, the Sonics, in a show of commitment to Kemp as their foundation, promised to move deferred money, about $300,000, from the back to the front of his contract.

But before that transaction was completed, the Sonics made another, trading Kemp to the Chicago Bulls for Scottie Pippen. The Sonics backed out of the swap, then tried telling Kemp, as well as the public, that no such deal was made. Meanwhile, the issue of deferred money was further delayed as Seattle negotiated a $20 million contract with Detlef Schrempf through the same representatives, Tony Dutt and Jeff Neal, that Kemp was using.

That fall, Kemp skipped the first few days of training camp as his agents and the Sonics finalized a one-year contract extension for $14.6 million in 2002-03. The damage control had begun too late, however.

"He's much smarter than people give him credit, and he doesn't like it if others don't act intelligently with him," says a source familiar with the events. "He'll hang with you if you hang with him. He'd rather you give him tough news and let him work through it, than making promises that you don't eventually keep."

Kemp agrees with this assessment. And that's why the sting of last summer remains with him.

Kemp listened intently to the ka-ching of the Sonic-led free-agent frenzy. Teammate Gary Payton got $87.5 million. New teammate Jim McIlvaine got $33.6 million. Teammates Craig Ehlo, Hersey Hawkins, Sam Perkins and Steve Scheffler signed for a combined $25.9 million.

During his subsequent 21-day holdout from training camp, Kemp was visited in Elkhart by owner Barry Ackerley, who assured his star he would be taken care of when the Sonics were able. Yet the reality is, even if the Sonics had not signed McIlvaine and just re-signed their own free agents, they still would have been over the salary cap when Kemp's deal is eligible to be amended, in October. That means the most they can offer is a 20 percent raise.

Because no player can have more than seven years on his contract, and Kemp still will have six, the Sonics can extend his deal only one year for $17.5 million. That seems like a lot of money, but it won't come until the year 2003-04. Plus, the total of Kemp's new seven-year deal will be a very back-loaded $52.7 million. That not only is a fraction of Payton's deal, it is barely half of what Juwan Howard received from Washington and not even half of Shaquille O'Neal's deal with the L.A. Lakers.

Kemp knows all this.

"I'm no dummy," he says. "I have a good sense of the business end of this game. I have a lot of people working with me. . . . It's important to know what's going on."

Kemp says he knew the consequences of his holdout. He realized it wasn't going to result in an extra penny, because the Sonics' hands were tied by the collective-bargaining agreement. Kemp's agents even got him a new, multiyear deal with Reebok worth $2.5 million per season, plus incentives.

But Kemp wanted to make a point.

"It makes me angry, no doubt about it," he says. "It doesn't make me angry that guys are making a lot of money. It makes me angry the way things happened. A lot of things fall on the premier players in the league. If somebody is getting $100 million, I'm for Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon getting that money.

"I never went to the Sonics and asked for more money. I didn't ask for another dollar. What I wanted was the right to have a conversation. If they're going to start giving out $100 million, let's start giving it out to guys who have been good over time, who've shown a commitment to the game and who do things the right way."

If that was his point, it rings somewhat hollow six months later. Kemp's agent, Dutt, muddled the message by releasing a statement with laughable references to Kemp needing "renewal." Kemp further obscured his point by refusing to address it during the holdout, a mistake he now admits.

And yes, all along, Kemp also wanted the right to claim his place among the league's most deserving players.

"I don't just want to be the best player in the NBA, I want to be the highest paid," he says. "People ask how much is enough. If you're going to be considered the best, you want to be up there with the best in every way.

"People also say we're making a lot of money anyway and wonder why would we need more. I hear what they're saying. But what they're saying also goes against what makes people great. That's competing and wanting to get better and better. And that includes the money you're making."

Shawn Kemp doesn't need more money to buy more toys, more cars, more houses. He needs more money because money, in his world, is an acknowledgment and a way to measure accomplishment. "My belief is, if you don't pay Shawn what he and his boys want, he won't perform," says Tito Salgado, a producer who sued Kemp for refusing to appear in a movie last summer.

But he has performed. When Kemp joined the Sonics, they were in disarray. Now they are among the most popular and respected teams in the NBA. He knows he had a big part in making them so.

Kemp surveys the league closely. He noticed how Clyde Drexler went unappreciated in Portland and seemed trapped on a path of broken promises until the Trail Blazers finally relented and traded him to Houston so he could at least collect his championship ring. Under recent circumstances, the latter part of that scenario holds some appeal to Kemp.

In addition to knowing his holdout would not result in a new contract, Shawn Kemp knew there would be hell to pay. He spent much of the 21 days preparing friends and family for the ramifications. A lot was at stake, he told them, and the league, including his team, wouldn't look kindly upon his actions.

The media would kill him, Kemp warned. And they would have allies all over the place.

"Shawn thought a lot of negatives would come because of the holdout," recalls Duane Wickey, who four years ago moved from Elkhart to live with his closest friend, Kemp, in Seattle. "To him, that was a given."

To anyone who writes these off as paranoid fantasies, Kemp trots out exhibit A: Peter Vecsey. Nearly two weeks ago, Vecsey reported on NBC and in his New York Post column that Kemp admitted to teammates during an April 6 players-only meeting that he was "having some difficulty with alcohol."

An affidavit signed by all of Kemp's teammates denies Vecsey's report. Sonic players and associates of Kemp's maintain that the under-siege forward is neither a big drinker nor partier. Also, Kemp's docket - five traffic violations since 1991, plus a handful of civil judgments - is unusually light for a high-profile professional athlete and does not suggest patterns of substance abuse.

"I've spent a couple of seasons now with Shawn and never once have I seen him abuse alcohol," Sonic guard Hersey Hawkins says. "It's difficult how you could run a story like that without any proof. There was nothing wrong with Shawn three weeks ago. You don't become an alcoholic in three weeks."

"What Vecsey said, that's a pretty bold statement," Portland's oft-troubled Isaiah Rider told the Oregonian recently. "You have to be 100 percent sure, and if the (Sonics) are saying it's not a problem, then I don't think it's a problem. I think Shawn's just going through some tough times. He wishes he were playing better. He wishes he had more money. He wishes they were winning more. He wishes the media would stay off him."

Check, check, check and check.

In addition to disputing the main focus of Vecsey's report, team sources deny that Sonic players were allowed to vote to start Kemp in Sacramento on April 6 rather than suspend him, as Vecsey also reported. Those sources say team president Wally Walker informed the Sonic captains, plus a couple of other senior players, that he was inclined not to suspend Kemp, and they agreed.

Declining to comment specifically on that meeting, Walker acknowledges he wanted to employ "a carrot-stick approach" to Kemp's chronic tardiness.

Because so many key components of Vecsey's report have crumbled under scrutiny, Kemp and his people smell a set-up. Dutt and Wickey have spent considerable time trying to ferret out a perceived leak in the Sonic organization. Kemp says, "You can't tell me that someone didn't put that story in Vecsey's ear."

Kemp adds, "When things don't go right, people are always trying to protect themselves."

Making matters worse for Kemp, Vecsey's report seemed to make him fair game for local commentators. One columnist made a brazen but unsupported reference to Kemp appearing drunk in public. Another wrote that there's no truth to the rumor that Kemp is changing his name to "Shawn Hemp," a thinly veiled reference to rampant speculation that Kemp is a heavy marijuana user.

Kemp categorically denies he is a drug abuser and says if the NBA is concerned about linking him with marijuana, "it hasn't said anything to me about it." Sources say Kemp has neither been drug tested nor have the Sonics made a case for such, as would be required before any test is administered. The NBA currently does not test for alcohol or marijuana use.

"I'm from a part of Indiana where drugs and alcohol is a big problem," Kemp says. "I'm one of the biggest role models to come out of that area. How could I do those things? That would be going with everything I'm against. I go back every year and play with kids on the playgrounds and talk to them about not using drugs and alcohol. How does it look when it comes out nationally that I'm doing stuff like that?"

The accusations regarding alcohol abuse infuriate Kemp the most, mainly because they have been the most public and the most persistent. The issue first was broached in a story published by the Seattle Post- Intelligencer on Feb. 8, the day before Kemp was to play in the NBA All-Star game in Cleveland. The article, based on information provided by waiters at The Keg Restaurant in the University District, alleged that Kemp was out late and drinking heavily the night before a Feb. 2 daytime loss to Chicago.

Restaurant management later disputed many of the allegations. A copy of Kemp's bill released to The Seattle Times showed that Kemp ordered a prime rib, a Caesar salad, sourdough bread, four shots of whiskey and three beers. It also turns out that Kemp was at the restaurant with three friends and no one witnessed how many of the drinks Kemp consumed.

Kemp says he ordered the drinks because he was picking up the tab. He and Wickey say they met friends for a late-night dinner, a common practice of Kemp's because he wants to avoid attracting attention. Both say they didn't stay out very late because of the game the next day, plus the fact that Kemp's mother and Wickey's father were in town from Indiana, awaiting them at Kemp's house in Magnolia.

"I've never been a big drinker," Kemp says adamantly. "I've never wanted to be a big drinker. And I've always taken pride in the way I've handled myself in public. I've never been in a place and been intoxicated. I've never gone out and screamed and yelled or anything like that. I've never gone out and bought a bunch of drinks. If I'm out, I'll buy people drinks, sure. But I never tried to create that kind of image for myself.

"My All-Star weekend was ruined because of that story. The whole weekend, I sat up in my hotel room. By the time the story had gotten to Cleveland, there were reporters asking my mom if I had drunk 20 shots before the Bulls game. It was the first time something came out and I let it bother me. Usually I turn things around and use it as a positive."

The timing of the story couldn't have been worse.

Determined to prevent his critics from saying his holdout affected his play, Kemp hadn't paced himself as he usually does at the beginning of the season. A quarter of the way through, he had averaged about 24 points and 12 rebounds per game. But his legs were wasted as a consequence and Kemp now says, "I may have shot my gun too early."

Kemp lost his explosiveness. He stopped beating his opponents down the court for early postups, a tactic that led to his rise during last year's playoffs.

About the same time, opponents started double- and triple-teaming Kemp with a fury. Kemp started to slip, and when a player gets lost on the Sonics, he tends to stay lost because they have enough talent to fill the void.

When Kemp begins to waver, Sonic Coach George Karl calls fewer plays for his power forward, forcing Kemp to score through hustle plays - rebounds, loose balls and transitions. Kemp wanted help - more plays, more touches and more picks. But he says he was reluctant to approach the coaching staff or teammates, out of fear he would appear selfish.

Sometime during this stretch, Kemp says he was burdened by "personal problems." There has been speculation regarding the several paternity issues he has faced in recent years, but he maintains they have been dealt with and do not trouble him. When pressed, Kemp says the source of his concern was back home in Elkhart. He refuses to specify the problem, but says it bothered him not being able to attend to it in person.

Already struggling, Kemp was most vulnerable when the P-I article was published. It sent him into a tailspin. During seven fitful days between March 30 and April 4, Kemp missed a team flight and a practice in Phoenix, was late to a team meeting and then missed a practice, a transgression for which he later was excused.

That week opened the spigot for innuendo. But those around Kemp weren't alarmed because chronic tardiness always has been a character trait. In previous years, team sources say, Kemp's lateness was only a minor irritant because he would perform an extra workout the subsequent evening with assistant coach Tim Grgurich.

Kemp says he usually tries not to concern himself with his acts of tardiness because doing so detracts from his focus on the task ahead - either a practice or a game. This time, however, he could not overcome the emotional weight of everything swirling about him.

"I've dealt with negativity my whole career," Kemp says. "It doesn't bother me, what's being said about me, as long as I know the truth. But, after a period of time, it does get old. It's something I've dealt with this year. I think I let myself slide a little when I started letting myself feel bad, a little down. I was playing bad, then I missed the flight. If something like that happens, I'm usually able to push it aside, not pay that much attention to it and still play. This time, I let it bother me."

Shawn Kemp long has been a ruse on our sensibilities. A 19-year-old kid, he entered a man's world appearing to belong. His 6-foot-10-inch frame, baritone voice and polished demeanor provided the perfect cover.

He looked like a man. Moreover, he quickly began playing like one in the NBA, the ultimate expression of a game in which one's manhood is tested and exposed minute to minute, day to day.

During the intervening eight years, the cheers, the escalating hopes and expectations, have drowned out a bottom-line question with Kemp: What becomes of a man whose childhood has been lost, whose childhood wounds not only failed to heal, but have been repeatedly reopened?

"It's hard to live it," says Bernie Bickerstaff, Kemp's first NBA coach. "He's still a relatively young man. It's hard to live with things all around you and you're supposed to be The Man."

Although Kemp never attended a day of college, he majored in adversity.

Kemp's native Indiana is such a basketball-crazed place that one of the most contentious debates during a recent session of the state legislature was over the structure of the state tournament. No surprise then that Kemp's decision to play college ball at archrival Kentucky didn't go over well.

A black, inner-city kid with flair, Kemp stood out as a target in a sea of white suburbanites. Their comments got racial. They razzed him mercilessly about his SAT scores. They denied him the award he coveted, "Mr. Basketball," and gave it to a player with a fraction of his talent.

It didn't stop at Kentucky. There, Kemp was accused by Indianans of looking for handouts from recruiters. He also took the rap for a teammate who stole a gold necklace from then-coach Eddie Sutton's son.

The furor chased Kemp from a boiling cauldron right into the NBA's inferno.

"Shawn has been set back so many times during his career, people don't even realize," says Sonic assistant Dwane Casey, who recruited Kemp to Kentucky and has remained a friend since. "By his demeanor in high school, people thought he was a brute, a big tough. They thought he was lazy. They thought he didn't play hard. Consequently, he's been sensitive to criticism his whole career."

A recluse, Kemp's response to controversy often is a further retreat into solitude. It's an easy move. By his profession's standards, Kemp's Seattle home is modest, a 2,900 square-foot structure purchased in 1991 for $350,000. Yet it seems the perfect haven, located on a dead-end street in the neighborhood of Magnolia, set off the thoroughfare and safeguarded on one side by a ravine. Kemp also owns a sprawling estate, outside of Elkhart, whose most distinguishing feature is its inability to be detected.

Kemp might be even more isolated than his homes. The teammate he hangs with most is Gary Payton, but they are not close friends. Kemp's inner circle is tight but also distanced - his mother lives in Indiana, his agent in Houston and his closest friend in Seattle while Kemp spends 60 percent of the season on the road.

"I trust absolutely no one, other than my mom and very limited friends," Kemp says. "I don't have very much contact with anybody. It makes things easier for me to deal with things."

There are skeptics.

"Being right out of high school, he's used to being coached," says one associate. "It's hard for him to make decisions. He doesn't know who he can trust."

Kemp's reclusive nature clearly doesn't serve him well in the fish-bowl world of high-priced entertainment. He wants to be respected, not inspected. He draws attention to himself with his flashy play and idiosyncratic gesturing, but wants people to stop looking as soon as he steps off the court.

This dichotomy invites misunderstanding and scrutiny. People guess. Kemp mistrusts them even more for doing so.

"People were just waiting for this," Kemp says of the sequence of events that followed his training-camp holdout. "I told everybody last summer that stuff like this was going to happen. Basically every situation that's happened, I told people it was going to happen. I've been in the league a long time and I have a pretty decent feel about stuff. I knew a bunch of negative stuff was going to come out."

The lesson Kemp takes from the past year is that he wasn't private enough. He doesn't want to tell, he says, because there is nothing to tell. He says he has few interests outside of basketball. So Kemp wants his basketball to do his talking for him.

But there are days - some of the darkest days in his life, in fact - when the basketball either is silent or simply doesn't say enough.

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. What's the deal? .

The remainder of Shawn Kemp's contract, compared with two big deals signed by teammates Jim McIlvaine and Gary Payton last summer:

.

Kemp McIlvaine Payton . 96-97 $3.0 million $3.0 million $16.5 million # . 97-98 $3.3 million $3.6 million $9.3 million . 98-99 $3.5 million $4.2 million $7.5 million . 99-00 $3.6 million $4.8 million $9.3 million . 00-01 $3.6 million $5.4 million $10.0 million . 01-02 $3.6 million $6.0 million $10.2 million . 02-03 $14.6 million $6.6 million $10.35 million .

.

# Includes signing bonus .

If incentives are met, total contract value is $87.5 million.